Saturday, April 21, 2012

Corpsing A Skull

Chris Ellerby of Vex FX brings us this outstanding tutorial on corpsing a skull. This is one of the clearest explanations of the technique I've seen. With a relatively small investment in materials you can create an outstanding prop. More importantly, once you're familiar with the basic concepts you'll see how it can be used to produce everything from mummified sideshow specimens to aged leather book covers.

"Corpsing is a technique for transforming a skeleton or skull prop into a corpse by adding tissue, ligaments, veins, or other anatomical details. This tutorial will cover some of the basic techniques we used when corpsing several skulls for one of our projects.

First you need to decide what style of corpsed prop you want to create. This usually depends on cause of death, timeline, and environmental conditions. A skull that has been soaking in a swamp for 3 months will look quite a bit different than one that has been mummifying in a desert for 20 years. Once you have picked a basic style you can determine color pallet, textures and materials."



6 comments:

Lord Auron said...

I saw that and almost puked. Well done indeed! :D

Phil said...

Nice!

I've said it before. A successful prop is one that you're too afraid to touch. Even though you know its just latex, resin, and paint.

Angus said...

I wondered if anyone knew where to find cheap skulls in Europe? Or at least something that can be delivered for a reasonable price.
I did find some cheap bucky skulls in the US, but the P&P was just ridiculous, 25$ for two skulls, 170$ P&P...

Vex FX said...

@Lord Auron: If you think they are repulsive now, just imagine them all freshened up on set with some fake blood or slime. ;)

@Angus: The skulls I used in my tutorial are from the "Lindberg Pirate Skull" model kit. You can find them online for around $15 USD, but I'm not sure about the P&P.

Bucky skulls are fantastic, but they are quite heavy and a little more expensive. (I usually go for lighter skulls, as they often find their way into animatronics)

Anonymous said...

That's gross

DrPnakotic. said...

Thank you for posting this. I've been wanting to know how to do this for a long time now.